<p align="center"><b>Writing pages using Wiki-like formatting</b></p>

<p>
  Wiki formatted pages provide a facility for marking up plain text with intuitive, human readable
  formatting that will be converted to XHTML when displayed. The big advantages are that you 
  do not need to learn HTML to produce quite complex results, and that the text you write
  <em>looks</em> good to the eye even <em>before</em> conversion. It is a real alternative to 
  saving Word files as HTML retaining the ability to edit the resource online.
</p>

<p>You should enter basically plain text. There are a number of <em>special</em> characters you
can add to insert formatting</p>

<h3>Block level formatting</h3>

<p>
  Paragraph blocks are separated by at least one blank line. To add special formatting to a paragraph
  add one of the following special characters in the first character of the first line of the block followed
  by a space...
</p>

<table>
  <tr><th>Character</th><th>Block Type</th></tr>
  <tr><td>No character</td><td>Ordinary paragraph</td></tr>
  <tr><td>&gt;</td><td>Quotation</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Space</td><td>Preformatted Text (Monospaced)</td></tr>
  <tr><td>%</td><td>Preformatted <em>and</em> Wikki formatting is ignored</td></tr>
  <tr><td>!#</td><td>Heading - where # is 1-6, the heading level (1 is biggest)</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Q.</td><td>Question - styling info added to paragraph to improve question/answer presentation (in theme)</td></tr>
  <tr><td>A.</td><td>Answer - as above but answer</td></tr>
</table>

<h3>List Formatting</h3>

<p>Simple lists can be constructed easily by placing a special character at the start of each line in the list followed by a space.
The list is terminated by a blank line. Lists may be freely nested - and nested lists may change list type. Definition list
definitions and text types may be freely intermixed to obtain the desired effect. The special characters
are as follows...</p>

<table>
  <tr><th>Character</th><th>List item type</th></tr>
  <tr><td>*</td><td>Unordered List (bullet points)</td></tr>
  <tr><td>#</td><td>Ordered List (1,2,3 etc)</td></tr>
  <tr><td>:</td><td>Definition list, definition</td></tr>
  <tr><td>;</td><td>Definition list, text</td></tr>
</table>  

<p>Nested lists example:</p>
<p><pre>
  * First Bullet
  * Second Bullet
  ## nested line 1
  ## nested line 2
  * Third Bullet
</pre></p>
<p>Produces:
<ul><li>First Bullet</li>
  <li>Second Bullet</li>
  <ol><li>nested line 1</li>
    <li>nested line 2</li></ol>
  <li>Third Bullet
</ul></p>

<h3>Inline formatting</h3>

<p>Inline formmating allows part of a line to be marked as having a particular style. The special
characters used can appear anywhere on a line, but note that the formatting cannot
cross lines. Codes are as follows...</p>

<table>
  <tr><th>Example</th><th>Example</th><th>Formatting</th></tr>
  <tr><td>*hello world*</td><td><strong>hello world</strong></td><td>Strong or Bold</td></tr>
  <tr><td>/hello world/</td><td><em>hello world</em></td><td>Emphasis or Italics</td></tr>
  <tr><td>+hello world+</td><td><ins>hello world</ins></td><td>Inserted text</td></tr>
  <tr><td>-hello world-</td><td><del>hello world</del></td><td>Deleted or Strikethrough</td></tr>
  <tr><td>hello ~world~</td><td>hello <sub>world</sub></td><td>Subscript</td></tr>
  <tr><td>hello ^world^</td><td>hello <sup>world</sup></td><td>Superscript</td></tr>
  <tr><td>"hello world"</td><td>&#8220;hello world&#8221;</td><td>Quoted</td></tr>
  <tr><td>%hello world%</td><td><code>hello world</code></td><td>Code or Monospaced</td></tr>
  <tr><td>@hello world@</td><td><cite>hello world</cite></td><td>Cite</td></tr>
</table>  

<h3>Acronyms</h3>

<p>Acronym tagging is acheived by placing the acronym in capital letters followed by the description
is parenthesis. There must be no space between the acronym and the parenthesis. Example...</p>

<p>HTML(Hypertext Markup Language) <br />   <acronym title="Hypertext Markup Language">HTML</acronym></p>

<h3>Hyper Links</h3>

<p>Links can be placed in the text and are followed (with no spaces) by the text to be displayed in brackets. Example: </em>http://www.google.com/(Search Now)</em> will be converted to 
<a href="http://www.google.com/">Search Now</a>.</p>

<p>Mail links can be acheived the same way, e.g.,</p>
<p>nobody@example.com(Test User) will be converted to
<a href="mailto:nobody@example.com">Test User</a></p>

<h3>Moodle Module Links</h3>

<p>If you know the Moodle id number (look for ?id=nn at the end of a module address) and 
the module name, you can link directly to that resource using the syntax:</p>

<p>ModuleName:nn(Description Text)</p>
<p>eg, <em>resource:36(My New Page)</em>   <em>forum:10(Jump to forum)</em></p>

<h3>Moodle Picture Links</h3>

<p>Inline graphics can be placed on wiki pages. You need to upload the graphic and note its path within the file upload area. The syntax is:</p>

<p>/<em>..path to file..</em>(alt text)</p>

<p>for example,  /mypics/graphic.jpg(Staff picture)</p>

<h3>Moodle File Links</h3>

<p>Very like Picture Links (above), this feature enables links to previously uploaded
files to be placed in a wiki page. The syntax is:</p>

<p><b>file:</b><em>..path to file</em>(link text)</p>

<p>for example, file:/pdfs/moodle.pdf(Information About Moodle)</p>

<h3>Automatic reformating</h3>

<p>Many commonly used functions are converted into their XHTML equivalents automatically.. The main ones are as
follows...</p>

<ul>
  <li>HTTP links are converted into active links
  <li> ..., (R), (TM), (C), 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 are all converted to the correct character
  <li> digits x digits converts to correct multiply symbol
  <li>A line starting with at least four dashes is converted into a horizontal line
</ul>  

<h3>Spelling Checker (Experimental)</h3>

<p>The wiki formatter can be switched into a spell checking mode. Place the following on
a line by itself in the text. Everything after this will be checked...

<pre>
!SPELL:language_code:language_variant

Examples:
!SPELL:en:british
!SPELL:sp
</pre>

<p>"language_code" should be replaced by the appropriate code (e.g., EN, FR etc), "language_variant" (along with the colon) is optional and can be one of "american", "british", or "canadian" if the language code is EN.</p>

<p>When displayed any unknown words are highlighted and you can see suggestions by holding the mouse over
the word</p>

<p><em>NOTE: spelling uses the <strong>pspell</strong> libraries. These and the required dictionaries must be present on your server for the spell checker to work. In particular the Windows platform is not supported.
</em></p>
